This technical note deals with the design of robust digital controllers using pole placement with sensitivity shaping by means of the use of digital notch (band-stop) filters. The use of this type of filters drastically simplifies the effective shaping of the sensitivity functions and the resulting procedure competes with the procedure based on the use of Q-parameterization combined with convex optimization (Automatica 3 5 (1999) 1111). The feasibility of the technique is illustrated by its application to the control of a very flexible arm. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.